US National Security Adviser Robert O’Brien said the Trump administration is committed to a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
“We want to see the Palestinians in their own state with their own government, hopefully a democratic government, and one that thrives economically alongside Israel,” O’Brien told conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt in an interview broadcast Thursday.
He said the Palestinians had a “unique opportunity” to reach a peace agreement with Israel under US President Donald Trump and that “he’d love to get a great deal done” for them.
“And we’ve got a lot of credibility with the negotiations to work with our Israeli friends to make sure that happens. And so this is an opportunity for the Palestinians to come to the table and get a great deal for themselves,” he said.
O’Brien was speaking after visiting Israel and the United Arab Emirates this week to follow up on the US-brokered agreement between the countries to normalize diplomatic ties. As part of the normalization deal, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu agreed to shelve his campaign pledge to annex the 30 percent of the West Bank slated for Israel under Trump’s peace plan.
Palestinian Authority President Mahmud Abbas speaks in the West Bank city of Ramallah on September 3, 2020. (Alaa Badarneh/Pool/AFP)
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas has rejected the US peace proposal, which provides for the conditional establishment of a Palestinian state on the rest of the West Bank territory and in the Gaza Strip, with some additional territory inside Israel. He has also railed at the UAE for agreeing to normalize ties with Israel before a Palestinian state is established.
“The problem is with some of this old leadership that’s hidebound and tied to the old PLO, you know, Marxist-Leninist revolutionary struggle mentality of the ’50s and ’60s,” O’Brien said of Abbas and other Palestinian leaders. READ MORE
